Mercedes miracle, Ferrari nightmare.. A review

Gaurav Davare
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read
Credits- motorsportmagazine.com

The post summer-break F1 season has finally kicked into full swing after with a back-to-back weekend after a relatively decent race at Belgium with Ferrari and Vettel kicking off the 2nd half of the 2018 season in style with a dominant win. The 2nd half of the season has not only had a lot of on-track action, but equally a lot of off-track action with the driver market musical chairs playing havoc on the grid starting from Daniel Ricciardo’s move to Renault , Fernando Alonso’s retirement from Formula 1 at the end of the season as well as the now reborn Racing Point Force India most likely causing a mid-season driver change at the cost of Esteban Ocon. Now we head to the Temple of Speed, Monza, one of the fastest circuits on the calendar and the home of the Tifosi, Ferrari’s greatest supporters. With the current pace of the Ferrari car, the Italian Grand Prix added even more pressure on Ferrari to score a good result as there was a great chance of a front-row lockout.

Silver lining for Mercedes, Dark clouds for Ferrari

The Italian Grand Prix was one of the better Grand Prix witnessed at Monza after a very long time.The weekend started off with another Halo promotion of sorts due to Marcus Ericsson’s crash due to a DRS failure in FP2. The good news was that he was perfectly fine. Qualifying was an absolute thriller with positions for pole changing right up to the final few seconds. We surprisingly had Kimi Raikkonen finally getting his long awaited 1st pole position of the season . During the race there were on track battles all over the field, a legitimate battle for the race win that nearly went down to the wire, controversy with the championship contenders, questionable on-track maneuvers etc.

It was a hard fought brilliant win from Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes after outsmarting his championship rival ,Vettel at the start and mugged him off around the outside of Turn 4 despite some contact but no fault of Hamilton’s to be fair and then kept Kimi Raikkonen on his toes for the entire race and due to a better strategy, finally overtook Kimi Raikkonen for the lead with 8 laps to go. Valtteri Bottas didn’t really have a equally impressive race due to losing time to Verstappen and in the end being used as the wingman to Lewis to try and hold up Kimi Raikkonen which worked out in the end . Bottas had a very intense battle for Verstappen but was pushed off-track so even though he finished 4th, Verstappen received a 5 second time penalty due to pushing Bottas off track, which promoted Valtteri Bottas to 3rd in the end. All in all, a smartly executed teamwork strategy by Mercedes to extend the points gap to 25 points over Ferrari despite Ferrari locking out the front row. This result also means Lewis Hamilton extends his championship standings lead to Vettel by 30 points, which gives him a strong momentum with 7 races to go.

What could have been a miracle 1–2 for Ferrari after qualifying turned into a major disaster in front of the Tifosi with Sebastian Vettel starting 2nd, making another crucial mistake on lap 1 tring to defend against Hamilton coming into Turn 4 resulting in contact and Vettel, spinning and dropping down to the back of the field. Vettel recovered enough to finish 4th in the end due to Verstappen’s penalty. This costly mistake from Vettel has left him 30 points behind Hamilton in the driver’s standings with only 7 races left. It is now crunch time for Vettel as he’s got a steep hill to climb in order to catch Hamilton in the driver’s standings and has to avoid making such mistakes at all cost. Kimi Raikkonen started off the weekend in a brilliant way in scoring his first pole position of the season which was long awaited. In the race, he held off Hamilton really well up until the last 8 laps due to a questionable strategy by Ferrari to pit Raikkonen very early resulting in Raikkonen not having much tyre life in comparison to Hamilton to defend in the end resulting in him losing the lead t Hamilton and finishing 2nd in the end. All in all a strategic and leadership failure from Ferrari at Monza costing them even more points to Mercedes in the drivers and constructors standings despite Ferrari arguably having the better car this season.

It was a difficult race for Redbull with Daniel Ricciardo already starting at the back due to engine penalties and Max Verstappen not able to do much due to the Renault engine deficit in qualifying. During the race it was a clutch failure that took Ricciardo out of the running early-on while trying to make-up positions . Max Verstappen had a great start to the race climbing to 3rd holding off Bottas until some overaggressive maneuvers forced Bottas off track leading to a 5 place time penalty. Verstappen had a bit of a red mist moment which in the end not only cost him position to Bottas , but Vettel as well due to the penalty, finishing 5th in the end. A difficult race for Redbull and a unnecessary mistake from Verstappen who needs to pick his battles wisely.

Another strong points haul for Force India getting a double points finish with 6th for Esteban Ocon and 7th for Sergio Perez. At this rate of points, Force India could definetly set their sights on 6th in the standings to overtake Mclaren. Still there’s a driver dilemma over Ocon who might be replaced in Singapore by Lance Stroll.Hopefully Ocon can stay on the grid somehow.

A mixed yet decent race for Renault with Carlos Sainz finishing 8th and Nico Hulkenburg coming back through the field to finish 13th in the end. All in all a somewhat okay weekend but more points lost to 5th place in the constructors.

A much better race for Williams to get 9th with Lance Stroll and 10th with Sergey Sirotkin. This result means that all the drivers on the 2018 grid have scored points which is a great stat. Finally a well fought race for Williams.

A relatively quite race for Sauber with Charles Leclerc getting 11th and Marcus Ericsson 15th in the end. Surprising for Sauber considering they are one of the fastest cars in a straightline. All in all a tough race

It was a strong qualifying for Toro Rosso with Pierre Gasly 9th but the Honda engine couldn’t hold off the cars in front which ultimately led Gasly to finish 14th in the end.Tough luck for Brendon Hartley as a lap1 collision immediately ended his race. A tough weekend for Toro Rosso in general.

A disastrous weekend for Mclaren, with Fernando Alonso retiring due to a car failure and Stoffel Vandoorne finishing 12th in the end. Mclaren just seem to be slipping back further in the standings which isn’t a good sign for the future.

In the end , the Italian Grand Prix was a thriller with great battles everywhere. We now head off to Singapore next weekend. The crunch time for the Drivers and Constructors Titles is now.

Hope you enjoyed the review. Slap a like/clap to follow on more race reviews . See you after the Singapore GP.

Gaurav Davare

Written by

Motorsport enthusiast, 👍, Meme crazy, #forzaschumi👌👌

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